There is blue sky, the bright yellow of crime tape that flickers in the breeze, and birds sing.

He thinks, if he closes his eyes he would be able to hear just them, the call of birds awakening, but he can't do such a thing. He will be haunted, will see her in a million different lights, and so he doesn't.

The trees around are silhouetted tall against the sky, long branches bare and almost empty from the winter, with a green brush across them that is merely a hint, a promise of things to come. Of a purpose, somewhere.

No snow stains the ground beneath his feet - as he stares down and tries to fight the murmurs of sound drifting down the hill, carried on a wind that is cold no longer but straight from the south, and almost sings in its delight. To him, it would once have smelt of laughter. Laughter, and days that might one day be full of innocence again, but now there is nothing but broken earth, and memories.

There is coffee too, on the ground by his feet, left cold and dark by the waves of nausea flushing through him, that match the waves inside his head. The tossing of thoughts, of dreams, of clouds that should not be like this. Not here and now.

Storms should come, batter across them with hurricane force, and rip the world apart. Roots thrash in plummeting rain that stings as it beats against his skin, and the crack of thunder than can be nothing compared to the beating of his heart. That is what there should be.

Instead, there are dancing wisps that float and streak nonsense patterns across the sky. That offer nothing he wants. His fists clench, furious against the day. It should not be like this. It is all he can allow himself to feel, for now.

Don leans against the open door, a dark NYPD jacket slung across his shoulders, and Elliot can only focus on the colour of his blue jeans. How they are worn, fading at the knees, and near to ripping. One day, when least expected, they will tear. He can never get used to him like this. A man, not a boss. It's another thing wrong.

Elliot is wearing a jacket as well, and when he had slipped it on he had closed his eyes at how uncomfortably familiar it was again. An old skin - that doesn't quite fit any more- but that aches with past smells, and peoples lives. When he dares to look up at Don, clean and clear in morning light, he is struck by the age within his skin. He wonders what she'd say – now – walking down the hill with a small, faint smile and sliding her hair behind her ear before she meets his eyes.

He swallows. Too much, too soon. Too late to think of her, while people dig at the tree-line, and the tape keeps them away, by choice and not force. Closing his eyes, he hears the birds again, and wonders who else does. How far they carry on the wind. Whether they will reach to her.

There is a trickle already, a thaw not just of the fresh air but that is dripping from his heart. He is warming, dying, in equal measure. Never dead till warm, the old declaration of hypothermia. Of people pulled frozen from water. Perhaps this is what dying is, as feelings and blood flood back through him.

Time is indeterminate, here on the hill, and no one speaks to him. Not Don, who stands guard next to him. Not Fin, whose partner waits up on the hill, and watches all. Not Munch, who has run out of jokes, now when maybe they need them most, though he thinks he might kill him if he tries. There is only impossible sounds of life, of people's voices and whispering trees that hold secrets he can only guess at.

He looks up now, feeling rather than seeing anything, and through the glass of the door she is there. There, with hair escaping sideways in the breeze, and a stride to her step, and for the briefest of moments he allows it to be her. Allows himself to kid himself, just once more. One more time, as the end of hope walks towards them, and he thinks his heart may be breaking even before he knows.

Run. Run and never look back. Run and never know. Leave this all behind, and follow the winds.

It's too late. And suddenly, she is in front of them and he thinks, this can't be it. There has to be something more. There has to be lightening and fanfares and earthquakes that shatter them all. Lava and ash and molten death to destroy. This can't be it, with quiet grace and a woman they have known for so long, who grants them a look of reprieve as they gather around her, and then speaks.

"I'll have to confirm with dental records, back in the city, but..." and it's to Elliot that she holds out a hand and offers a clear, plastic evidence bag that he has held so many times before.

It won't be real. Don't see it and it won't be real.

He takes it, automatically, and he knows what he will see before he can focus. There, curled within so it rests gently in his palm, he sees the twisting chains of gold still stained with dirt, the pendants pressed together. His thumb moves them, shifts them until the letters speak to him, and it's her voice he hears, though perhaps she has never said it in words. Only in actions, next to him. Ready to save him. Always there.

Fearlessness

For a moment – as time leaves on a brush of air – it's unreal, but then there is the sound of John, of a pain that moans out without thinking, and the earth spins. He closes his eyes, and it's not his life that flashes before his eyes, but theirs, and he doesn't feel the moment his knees hit the ground.

You're just gonna sit here all night until I do aren't you, you stubborn son-of-a-bitch...You kill yourself to make something happen. Or you do nothing, and, it doesn't matter...I don't need you to take care of me...Screw you... You're the longest relationship I've ever had with a man. Who else would put up with me?...What about me?...How 'bout that. Me too...You're a classy guy, you know that?...Just what the world needs. Another Elliot Stabler.…...I work here...I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Someone, somewhere, is shaking him, and when he blinks and pants, and the world begins to right itself, he hears Melinda nearby, and it's her hand on his shoulder. He looks up, blankly, seeing nothing, and it takes him a while to decipher her words again. There is a buzzing, a blurred noise shooting through him, and he almost doesn't want to hear, but now she shakes him harder and looks him in the eyes and he has to.

"Elliot!" He tries to nod, his head heavy, and blinks before focusing on her eyes, and when she sees him, her voice softens. "Elliot, it's exactly as he said. I'll have to do a proper, full report, but I see no reason to doubt him." Thoughts are beginning to form inside him again, though in pieces, jagged edges biting against him.

"So he wasn't... he didn't... she didn't..." he's not sure what he is trying to ask, but Melinda knows anyway.

"She's unlikely to have felt a thing. The damage on... on the body matches his description. I'll have to investigate, to check it wasn't in transit, or in the ground but the bone fragmentation..."

As Melinda accidentally eases into the slightest details, acid floods into his mouth and chokes him, and he coughs, kneeling and spitting into the dirt, with her hand resting on his back. Dirt that has held her, deep within. The information sinks in. He goes to sit up, and catches a glimpse of the people still working, of the job he has seen done so many times, and the tidal wave of grief hits fully.

Squeezing his eyes shut, tears burn and push their way out, and he thinks his skin might split, raw and gashed with the force of the pain. He can't possibly hold this all within, this roaring agony that makes every cell in his body scream and tense, and there is a low moan from somewhere, but it can't be him. It can't be. Such a sound, small and lost in the flood is nothing compared to what he feels, and how is his chest big enough? How are his bones not cracking, shattering? There has to be something, something that gives and lets this pressure escape into the world. He cannot, will never be able to bear this for another second, and yet it goes on and on with no end in sight. This is what eternity is. Infinity. This pain.

Finally, there is a different noise that makes it through the pounding despair, and he opens burning eyes to see Fin and Munch restraining Don, who fights them both with a vicious fury Elliot can understand as if it was racing through his own body.

"I need to see her," he shouts, and now there are black silhouettes of birds scattering into the sky, harsh against the blue, and people have frozen above, looking down on their grief from afar. A figure detaches, running down the hill, and this time he won't allow himself to twist the woman into someone she's not.

It's Fin's Captain, the woman who took over after Don, and she reaches him just as Fin and Munch can hold him back no longer. She is slim, the same height as him, and for a moment Elliot watches, stunned, as it looks as if he will go straight through her. But then her hands are on his shoulders and he stops at her command.

"Stop it Don! Stop it." Her voice is loud, clear, but it reaches Elliot from miles away. She shakes him, like Melinda had done him. "Don't do this to yourself. Don't remember her like that. Let us do our jobs."

Don leans on her now, his head forward on her shoulder, and she wraps her arms around him like she's comforting a child, and there is a keening sound growing through the air, and Elliot can't tell if it comes from him, or Don, or all of them or none of them, only that is the sound of losing. The sound of the end of the world, with Olivia's name woven so deep it will never be free.

Olivia

There is blue sky, the bright yellow of crime tape that flickers in the breeze, and the birds still sing.

It might be hours, or days later, and he's sitting in the back of a car, being driven along a road he doesn't know, to a place that has changed forever. He's out of tears, out of pain, and when he looks down, he's surprised to find the bag with her necklace still crumpled in his fist. Her name is almost on his tongue again, he almost swells into the agony, but stops himself.

How can her life be only this? End, in such accidental quietness. In a flourish of violence that is only a whimper in the night. That has no meaning.

When he closes his eyes, this time, it is the letter and not her life that is burnt there.

Gran,

I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I can't make things right any more. But I never meant to hurt anyone, truly. Especially not you.

The pain is too much. Every time I close my eyes I see her. We fought, and I was so mad, and it happened without me meaning it to. If only the chair hadn't been there. I never meant to hurt her. But she fell over it, and her head hit the corner of the counter and it made this sound. I hear that sound every second now. I can't make it stop.

Her eyes were open and she wasn't breathing. I held her for so long but she didn't breathe again. Then I saw the badge, and the gun, and I got so scared Gran, really scared, like when Dad would yell. I knew everyone would hate me, for killing her.

I waited until it got quiet, and then I carried her away. No one saw me, so I guess I got lucky. I drove her to Uncle Henry's, you remember? The cabin? We used to play there, and be so happy.

I was real careful with her Gran. I promise. I did it proper, the best I could. I never wanted to hurt anyone. And now the pain and the thoughts and seeing her again and again just won't stop and they have to. I can't live like this.

I love you. I'm so sorry. I love you.

Elliot sees it happen. Again and again until he thinks there can be no more acid left to sear through him. No more left to watch her fall. In the mists of the day, Melinda's voice drifts again, in ways she thought might help. That he had buried her, east to west. That he had shown respect. A cross, made of stone.

Still he sees her fall.

Spring is fierce as it banishes winter, and the day is warm enough for him to leave his coat in his car as he walks. There is life, everywhere, trying to soak into his skin like sunlight, weak and tentative in its beginnings.

He is adapting to the ache, slowly. Heavy, solid, it rests across his chest at every moment but it doesn't flare or overwhelm so much now, even in short weeks. It is just there, and some deeper wisdom, some ancient instinct tells him that this is always as it will be. He remembers someone - in a distant past that might not even be his life - telling him that grief and loss never get easy. Never let up. They simply change, and you learn their taste and their weight and familiarity sees each day through.

He feels reassured, knowing that this pain will never cease. Perhaps he could not bear it if he did, if he thought that one day he would wake and be light and free of her. It wouldn't be right, somehow.

Outside the precinct, flowers scatter the side-walk. Different every day, but all for her. He pauses, breathes them in, and the air keeps a hint of them within it. He has no rage against this, though none lie there from him. She didn't die here, but she is remembered.

Ghosts slide across his skin as he walks into the building, along with smiles he knows so well. People are sad, yes, but relief is palpable. They can move on. He can't, of course, but that should matter to no one but him. He revels in the sight of her at every turn and step. Laughter trickles through him. Hers.

He is the last into the office. They have papers to sign, a formality. The closing of her case by all detectives involved, and so all four of them stand before the Captain's desk and scrawl their names beneath hers. Don. Fin. Munch. And him. She has gone, quietly into the ground near her mother, and already he knows he will never see her there, though others will. They will do their duty, with love.

Now they are left alone as the air dims around them. A bottle, four glasses, another clear with water that she would want. Don't fail, just for me, and Don holds onto it easily, fingers loose and knuckles hardly white. Elliot swirls the liquid in the glass, and Don speaks, as their glasses touch hers and the sound rings clear as snow falling. They toast.

To the best of the best.

When he walks out, he says goodbye. He will never return.

The walk back to the car is full of peace, of dusk sinking around him in layers. And he gets in, and she is there, of course.

"I knew you'd be here," and she smiles, and listens, eyes dark next to him. As always.

"You'd tell me I'm crazy, I guess. You'd worry, and nag until I saw a shrink. Or maybe, maybe you wouldn't. You'd understand.

You do understand, or you wouldn't be here.

I can't do this without you. You have to be here, to keep me together. If I don't have you, I will fall, and I can't do that to them. Neither can you, you never could. You always tried so hard to keep us whole. All of us. And you will. I can't do this without you, but I can with you. I promise.

Thank you, for being here.

Let's go home."

He talks, all the way, though she is gone as he cuts the engine out and sees his house with lights burning bright against the night. He knows she'll be back. He can be a better father, be a husband, be a man still, but only if she holds him tight. If she saves him, again.

I'll see you soon, he whispers, and he knows he will. She will never leave him now, and perhaps there is, in this strange way, some mercy to be found in life after all.

"Goodnight."